Wise Tree

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Trees are useful. They provide us with fruit, shade, wood, paper, oxygen, and many other things we couldn't live without. Some trees offer knowledge.

The Wise Tree is always willing to help the Hero out. Sure, it might not be able to fight, but what it lacks in power, it makes up in eloquence. It is often more than willing to teach others the ways of the world, stories of the ancient past, or the villain's weakness. It's not often explained just how it knows so much, but it's usually because they are older than time itself.

Wise Trees are almost always on the side of good. On occasion they may be True Neutral, simply choosing not to get involved with the conflict.

Naturally a Justified Trope since particularly large trees tend to be exceptionally old, and age equals wisdom, obviously. Plus, inasmuch as unless you are going to have Walking Trees, then a tree character isn't going to be able to contribute much physically or materially, and so their importance will rely on their contribution in knowledge and wisdom. Vice-versa, if a writer wants a character who dispenses wisdom but doesn't actually get involved, then making them a Wise Tree is a good justification for them not lifting a hand to help.

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Examples:

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Anime & Manga

Inuyasha: To try and understand Inuyasha's recently manifested Superpowered Evil Side, Sesshoumaru visits an old youkai that had served his father: a two-thousand-year-old magnolia tree-spirit. Bokusenou not only guesses what Sesshoumaru has come to see him about, but was expecting it.

Jureimon (Cherrymon) is this in Digimon Savers and Digimon World. He also played a sinister version of this in Digimon Adventure, serving as a villainous advisor for Pinocchimon (Puppetmon), who kills him when he says something (entirely true) that Pinocchimon doesn't want to hear.

Kabu from Kirby: Right Back at Ya!. Kabu appears as an enemy in most of the games, but in the anime, he's much bigger and serves as an oracle and guardian to the Cappies (like the Deku Tree). He also houses the warp star when it's not in use. He may technically be a wooden statue, although he appears to be a tree.

Comic Books

The Great Power of Chninkel: J'on the chosen one travels the ocean to visit a wise old figure so he can impart his wisdom about the history of the world to him. It turns out that the figure is in fact a giant tree which has stood there for eons. The only way to talk to it is by resting inside one of its flowers so it can establish a telepathic link.

Swamp Thing: The Parliament of Trees were once ambulatory plant/human syntheses, like Swamp Thing. They have since relinquished their humanity and mobility and reside in the Green, a mythic reality embodying the collective life of all plants. They, singly and as a group, either support, argue with, advise, or oppose Swamp Thing, depending on how well they believe he is fulfilling his role as defender of the Green.

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Fairy Tales

In some variations of the Cinderella fairytale, including the version recorded by The Brothers Grimm, instead of a fairy godmother there's a tree that was planted at Cinderella's dead mother's grave. Cinderella's dead mother's spirit lives in the tree and grants her wishes.

Films — Animation

Grandmother Willow from Pocahontas is a wise tree, who acts as a spiritual guide to Pocahontas throughout the film.

Films — Live-Action

The Tree of Souls in Avatar. By "plugging into" it, the Na'vi could hear the voices of their ancestors.

The Wise Man's Fear has an evil Wise Tree called the Cthaeh, though it might be a being sealed within the tree, not the tree itself. It possesses perfect knowledge of possible futures and absolute malice toward everything. While all the advice it gives to heroes is absolutely true, it will always steer the listener toward disaster. Could be considered an inversion in that the knowledge is non beneficial. Or at least a subversion of the common benevolent trees.

In So You Want To Be A Wizard, Nita has a nice chat with the rowan tree behind her house, who reassures her that trees don't hate humans for cutting them down and offers her a branch that she needs for a spell.

The father trees of the Pequeninos turn out to be this in the sequel novels to Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, or at least some of them do. Human is pretty wise, but maybe not all of them are, and one of them turns out to be a murderer—not at all a stupid murderer, mind you, but not exactly wise.

The weirwoods of A Song of Ice and Fire are believed by the Northmen and the Wildlings to be the physical representations of their gods, although it is strongly suggested that that belief is the heavily altered memory of a time when human Greenseers could possess trees and see and hear through them, and in any case, the trees do not talk, although the more religious among the Northmen and Wildlings do believe that their gods do commune with them indirectly through the weirwoods. In any case, this example at least plays with the trope. Later it is revealed that weirwoods store the souls of dead greenseers, and at least one living greenseer can communicate with people through the trees. Which is much closer to playing the trope straight.

Breath of Fire III had Yggdrasil the great tree of wisdom, who was also a Master in the game and could teach you various spells and stat changes. It's implied that party member Peco is one of its seedlings.

The Green Man, a forest spirit who appears as an ancient, large oak in Conquests of the Longbow will help Robin if he will provide the answers to his riddles.

Treant is a talking tree who gives Toan a sword to defeat the Killer Snake guarding the way in a local dungeon.

Jurak in both games. Also, Father Yggdra in White Knight Chronicles II.

The Grand Oak from Dragon Age: Origins is a tree possessed by a demon from a different plane, which talks in couplets. Being Dragon Age you can beat it up instead. It's definitely more of the neutral variety though it will trade you for a neat magical staff.

The Argonians worship the Hist, an ancientnote "ancient" as in "they have existed on the planet before linear time was conceived of" and possibly omniscient spore-reproducing trees. The can communicate with each other via deep, interconnected root systems and can communicate with the Argonians via visions transmitted in their sap, which the Argonians drink to learn and grow. Through an unknown means, they are able to see into the future. Sensing the upcoming Oblivion Crisis and the trials that would follow, they recalled most of the Argonians in Tamriel to the Black Marsh to combat these threats and, through their sap, changed the Argonians physically to better prepare them as weapons of war. Following the RedYear destruction of much of Morrowind, homeland of the Dunmer who kept many Argonians as slaves for countless generations, the Argonians invaded and took over the parts that remained habitable. In the 4th Era, due to their increased strength, the leadership of the Hist, and the valuable ebony deposits in Morrowind, the Argonians are one of only two forces of Tamriel believed to be capable of defeating an invasion by the AldmeriDominion. (The other being Hammerfell.)

Y'ffre, patron deity of the Bosmer (Wood Elves) and God of the Forest, is typically depicted taking the form of a large, bearded tree.

In Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, a giant tree in the Alive Forest blocks the way to the town of Windia. When Benjamin first enters the forest with the thief/ninja Tristam, they can't get past it. Later, when Benjamin returns with Kaeli, she is able to talk to the tree, who promises to grant them passage if they can cleanse it of monsters.

Subverted in Golden Sun. You meet a giant tree, but then discover he's not the nicest fellow. At least, not until you defeat the anger in his heart.

Laurel in Dark Dawn also counts. Upon meeting her, Amiti's immediate reaction is to bow in worship, then scold the others for not doing the same. "We're in the presence of an enlightened being. Bow your heads!" Laurel promptly rebukes him for doing so, since she doesn't really see herself as special. She's just like any other sapient, psychic tree spirit who's lived for hundreds of years...

Heroes of Might and Magic 3. Some maps had wise old oaks in them who would grant you a level, once per hero, either in exchange for some gems/gold or just out of boredom.

Implied to a more downplayed extent with the Koroks in The Wind Waker and Breath of the Wild, where the larger and presumably older individuals such as Hestu have more tree-like growths on their bodies.

NieR has the Divine Tree at the heart of the Forest of Myths, which the locals don't really interact with save for praying to it. Unfortunately it's not as wise as it used to be - it's supposed to be a repository for humanity's memories, but after 1,300 years it's starting to degrade. Nier ends up killing it in another one of his Nice Job Breaking It, Hero! moments that contribute to the extinction of mankind.

Wise Wisterwood of Paper Mario. You could go to the door either to go back to Toad Town or to get a hint as to what you should be doing next.

The Tree of Wisdom in Plants vs. Zombies gives the player tips, cheat codes that have very little effect on gameplay, and plant puns. It doesn't have a face, though.

The Dryad in Quest for Glory I protects the forest and gives the hero advise on how to make a dispel potion.

RuneScape has spirit trees, which are capable of speech, can transport others between spirit trees and have protective properties.

There are a series of "Trents" in Shining Wisdom that help Mars through the woods and save the princes/swan.

The Elderoot Tree in WildStar. Not just a magic talking tree, he's a magic talking CYBORG tree. He gets blown up before he tells you anything useful unfortunately. But only after he sends you on some inane quests, as is par for the course.

Yoku's Island Express has Dipperloaf, a paternal, stump-like entity who lives in the central western portion of the island.

Web Original

The Dendros line of creatures in Uni Creatures are enormous, sentient trees, the final stage being described as a "repository of knowledge and wisdom."

Western Animation

Family Guy: Peter Griffin once spoke to a forest full of talking trees, when he was pretending to be Native American. Unfortunately, talkative though they were, they were a subversion of the Wise Tree trope. They provided no insight whatever.

Courage the Cowardly Dog: One of these grows on the farm in "The Magic Tree of Nowhere". It granted wishes and gave Courage wise advice, but Eustace was jealous of it. Courage was forced to stop defending it to help Muriel, and it was cut down. It planned this however, and the cure for Muriel's sickness was in its branches.

The old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon had the Forest of Know Trees — i.e., Trees that Knew Everything.

An episode of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (1983) had Skytree, the oldest living being on the planet Eternia, whom He-Man is told to cut down by the Dragon King Granamyr in order to have his friend Man-at-Arms restored (after Skeletor turned him into crystal). Despite the tree actually agreeing to be cut (!) He-Man cannot do it, as he cannot bring himself to kill a sentient being. Turns out it was just a Secret Test of Character to find out if he deserved the Dragon's help. Granamyr restores Man-at-Arms anyway.

One episode of Teen Titans Go! features one of these. Robin chopped it almost immediately, however it lived on as a twig. Its ultimate fate was to become a toilet plunger.

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